Technological adoption and its impact on rice production: case studies of fogera wereda– south gondar zone, Amhara national regional state, Ethiopia

Abstract

Rice was introduced in Ethiopia in the 1970s and has since been cultivated in different parts of the countries and also has a great potential to contribute to food self-sufficiency and security in Ethiopia. This study was designed to assess the adoption and impact of rice production technology on household rice production in Fogera Woreda using cross sectional data obtained from 191 rice farmers selected from four kebeles to represent major rice producers. The study used binary logistic regression model to identify factors affecting adoption of rice production technology and propensity score matching to assess impact of adoption of rice production technology on household production levels. The results of binary logistic regression indicated that age of household head, family size of household head, participated labor force of household head, level of education of household head, size of cultivated land of household head and extension services significantly affected adoption of rice production technology. The propensity score matching showed adoption of rice production technology has a robust and positive effect on farmers’ rice production in quintal per hectare. The average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) was about 9.48 quintal yield per-hectare increase for adopters as compared to non-adopters which indicate that efforts to disseminate existing rice production technology will highly contribute to increase rice production among farm households. The result of sensitivity analysis also shows that the significance level is unaffected even if the gamma values are relaxed in any desirable level even up to 100% percent. This shows that average treatment effect on treated is not sensitive to external change. Complementary agricultural technology adoption best yield results when they are taken up as a complete package together, rather than in the individual elements to give high rice yield.